Resident Evil 4 is a good example of how I prefer it to be done. You can pretty much max out every weapon class in one playthrough if you know what you're doing, and you do become a one man army by the last hour or so, but the game throws enough guys at you that it manages to be empowering without becoming a pushover.
| Shadow1980 said: I like limitations. Imagine if Halo allowed you to carry six weapons at a time like you could in older FPSs. There's no tactical choice involved. You always have the right tool for the job. The two-weapon limit forced you make tough choices, to improvise. Having a shotgun+rockets combo forces a different play style than a sniper+BR combo. Another example I like is Final Fantasy. In FFIV all your PCs had distinct character classes with their own weakness, strengths, and abilities. Furthermore, since your party's members were constantly changing (Cecil was the only one that never left) you are constantly having to change up your tactics in battle. In FFVII the materia system changed this. While some PCs were better suited for magic than combat or vice versa, everyone was effectively a fighter-mage. I went through nearly the whole game with a Cloud/Tifa/Barrett party because there was no real need to change it up. All three characters were competent enough with both physical attacks and magic that the other characters were superfluous from a gameplay perspective. FFX had a similar problem with no restrictions on choice. While each character had a distinct class & abilities, you had the same party almost the whole game and thus you didn't have to ever change tactics. As a result, the combat felt shallow. Hell, even Mario doesn't let you fly and shoot fireballs at the same time. Now imagine a game that had a skill tree with four specializations that you upgrade through skill points: stealth, speed, strength, and defense. I think that giving you enough skill points to max out all four of them would, depending on how the skills were designed, would make your character too OP, giving you every tool you'd ever need at your disposal at any time. By restricting you only enough skill points to where you can max out only two of those categories, with few points left to distribute to the others, it forces tough choices. You can be quick and stealthy, but have lower defense and strength (call it the "Ninja" combo). You can be strong and resilient, but not particularly quick or stealthy (the "Mighty Glacier" combo). Or you could not max out any of them and distribute your skill points evenly to have a balanced character. |
Did you ever play Titan Quest (and the expansion)? It had a terrific skill system where you choose first one and then a second skill tree and then these again are filled with various skills and choices to be made. You can make a good character out of any two skill trees but regardless of your choices; there will always be a challenge to be had somewhere. The only thing missing in my mind is skills affecting one another more, like Diablo II 1.10 and on.
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